Golden Farm Thoroughbreds Limited was founded by Kevin Blake, Ivan Yates and Andrew Yates in May 2020 with a view to buying a number of high-quality broodmares to breed Flat racehorses on a commercial basis. Investors were invited to join on a five-year cycle where the ultimate purpose of the company was to produce yearlings for sale. During the summer of 2020 a further eight investors came aboard.
As with all Golden Farm investment funds, there is a great amount of emphasis placed on achieving the highest standard of corporate governance, transparency, communication and professionalism. With this in mind, Andrew Yates manages all legal and financial aspects of Golden Farm Thoroughbreds as well as being the main point of contact for investors.
In 2022, Golden Farm Thoroughbreds sold their first yearlings at public auction, with a colt by Soldier’s Call out of Rush realising £105,000 at the Goffs UK Premier Yearling Sale. This was soon followed by the sale of a colt by Ten Sovereigns out of Tracing that made 70,000gns at the Tattersalls December Yearling Sale, capping an excellent first year of sales for the fund.
While this company is currently closed for investment, it will reopen in 2025.
In the spring of 2020, I pursued the opportunity of investing in thoroughbred broodmares arising out of the disruption to the sector from the Covid pandemic and Brexit.
The key component was to find a suitable operator who would carry out all aspects of the sourcing of the mares, as well as all of the management and husbandry related to the pursuit. We chose Kevin Blake because all sources confirmed that he had impeccable integrity. Despite being in his thirties, he had spent more than a decade setting up his own successful breeding operation in Golden, Co. Tipperary.
His knowledge, specialised skillsets, welfare standards and access to top-class practitioners was excellent. Additionally, he was available to take on significant external capital to grow his equine enterprises. He provided a one-stop shop to act as bloodstock agent, breeder and manager for our operation.
The next step was to secure a proper investor structure legally, with the highest standards of corporate governance and budgeting. A founding principle of the venture was that all shareholders, regardless of size, would be treated equally. The shareholders’ agreement provides for a liquidity event in 2025 whereby shareholders will be given the option to exit or reinvest, through a buy/sell shares option based on an independent valuation of all the assets at a fixed date.
Having quietly invited investment from friends and business acquaintances, we ended up with 11 investors getting involved. The inaugural board meeting of the company was held in September 2020 where Sam McCauley, Noel McSweeney and Kieran Mulvey agreed to act as directors along with myself as chairman (all without remuneration). We appointed Kevin Blake as CEO/COO and Andrew Yates as CFO and Company Secretary.
Over the ensuing months, Andrew completed all the necessary work to finalise: full legal compliance with the CRO, Revenue Commissioners, issuing of Loan Note & Share Certificates; farmland lease; establish and operate banking facilities; subsequent preparation of financial statements with our appointed accountant, Patrick O’Gorman of OGBP & Co.
After agreeing a very detailed budget (which was approved by our board), Kevin had complete autonomy to purchase our three foundation mares. By the end of December 2020, Golden Farm Thoroughbreds had completed the acquisition of Rush, Sweet Affection and Tracing. This represented the completion of our mare investment programme, as all of the remaining capital will be required to fund stallion fees and all animal husbandry costs until, all being well, revenue sales from the autumn of 2023 onwards will put us in a self-sustaining cash positive situation.
As chairman, I want to strongly emphasise that this is a commercial venture. Our overall ambition and goal is to create a GFT cachet as a producer of top-class yearlings that have the potential to win Pattern races.
Our WhatsApp group, Shareholder Update emails, AGM and investor visit to Golden Farm each summer are all most informative and enjoyable, with a clear sociable dimension. I would like to personally sincerely thank the investors for their trust and confidence and our advisors for their professionalism, fellow directors for their support and advice, but most of all, thank Kevin and Andrew for their commitment, hard work and dedication in executing the entire operation.
Ivan Yates
Chairman
